


Number 2

by Winterlynne_Norvic



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, POV Kevin, also has stuff set before book one, kevin central, kinda angsty, set between chapter 6 and 7 book 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 16:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterlynne_Norvic/pseuds/Winterlynne_Norvic
Summary: Kevin's life and pov after Nathaniel(read the tags)based on this tumblr post: Do you guys think that Riko or even Tetsuji ever used Nathaniel Wesninski as like a ghost story to keep Kevin and Jean from running from The Nest when they were younger?post by blogaboutyafavbirdboys





	Number 2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lover_of_Fairy_Tails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lover_of_Fairy_Tails/gifts).



> first short fic guys! yayyyy, hope you enjoy!

Kevin remembers meeting the small auburn haired blue eyed boy 2 years younger than himself. He remembers being so excited that they got to play exy, him, Riko and Nathaniel, and even with Nathaniel's diminutive size, he was fast. He was  _ good _ .

 

Riko ridiculed Nathaniel for not being good enough where the boy couldn't hear, sometimes even where he could. But Kevin disagreed, Nathaniel only played little league and not much more,  _ but _ he had talent. Kevin knew that when Nathaniel played exy every day with them then he would be good enough, more so even and then he could become part of their perfect court and Kevin would have someone to talk to besides Riko.

 

After, Kevin remembers getting taken to a room with Riko and Nathaniel, and watching the butcher, Nathaniel’s father take apart a man while he screamed and they watched. While he died and they watched.

 

He remembers Riko’s pleasure as it happened, the first warning of the torture to come easily overlooked by Kevin’s own fear. He remembers Nathaniel’s glazed over eyes and perfectly still posture as if this had happened before and he was used to it. 

 

He probably was.

 

He remembers going to sleep sick to his stomach, his mind already forcing him to disregard the events of that afternoon. He remembers waking up excited to scrimmage even with The Master there to watch.

 

But Nathaniel wasn't there and the manor was frantic. There was yelling and closed doors and no sign of Nathaniel, the energetic little boy he'd met the day before. Kevin didn't understand.

 

He remembers being ushered onto a plane with an angered Riko less than 2 hours after waking and being shipped off back to evermore. He remembers The Master’s displeasure and the pain that came with that day.

 

If you asked Kevin about those 2 days he would say he didn't remember them, he would be lying of course, but he would refuse to tell you more.

 

He wanted to forget, but he couldn't forget Nathaniel.

 

They wouldn't let him.

 

Nathaniel became The Nest’s own personal horror story. The boy who was butchered by his own father because he ran away and displeased the Moriyamas.

 

The message was clear, and so deeply ingrained into Kevin's young mind. You were a possession. You could not run away from the Moriyamas and survive. 

 

Kevin could not run away.

 

He could not defy the Moriyamas.

 

He could not be his own person or choose another path.

 

He could never be more than the number 2 on his face.

 

He was constantly reminded of it. Riko would bring it up to establish dominance, to threaten people, to make himself feared. The Master used it like a blade, cutting him while he was already down, reminding Kevin of his place.

 

Kevin was property. Not an item like Jean, but not a brother like he supposedly was supposed to be. He was a pet, and he knew it.

 

Because of that, Kevin tried to avoid the subject of Nathaniel, but Jean would sometimes bring him up and Kevin could not deny him that. Kevin remembered  the first time Jean ever said Nathaniel's name was to ask if the tale was true, and if Kevin had met him, and what he was like.

 

Kevin tried to tell him the barest amount of details, but Jean always got more from him. Jean was curious about the partner he never met and should have had. Kevin figured Jean was lonely, they both were but they could never be lonely together because although they were allies in the darkness of The Nest, Kevin knew some small part of Jean would always hate him. For being number 2, for being more valuable, for taking less beatings, for having a parent who had not given him away.

 

Kevin knew Jean found solace in the idea that he wouldn't have been alone if the small boy had lived.

 

Nathaniel like Jean  **_had_ ** been given away. Nathaniel would be less valuable, take as many or more beatings, would be like Jean in almost every way. They would be equal. 

 

But then sometimes Kevin thought Jean hated Nathaniel just a little bit too. Nathaniel got to die before ever coming to this hell, his own mother had died along with him while trying to save Nathaniel from this fate. Had Nathaniel actually survived, the unyielding 3 on Jean’s lovely face wouldn't belong to him.

 

Kevin thinks that's Jean might have been a little bit glad Nathaniel was dead.

 

And then Kevin would spiral and he too would think about Nathaniel. He'd wonder what it would have been like to have Nathaniel here in The Nest.

 

~~_ Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like if he had managed to escape _ . ~~

 

It was fanciful thinking, unrealistic and never going to happen because Nathaniel was dead and sometimes Kevin thought it was better that Nathaniel died then come here to this hell.

 

In Kevin's mind, Nathaniel was preserved as a fiery little boy, and he knew that The Master and Riko would not have let that fire live. He'd have smothered Nathaniel the way he did Jean, and Kevin, and that Nathaniel would be broken like them. Death  _ might _ have been better.

 

But Kevin had exy and the dead boy did not, he had a shot at making court while Nathaniel would be forgotten everywhere except in the hive mind of The Nest where he was used as an example, a tool to wear and whittle away any and all your strength.

 

Those thoughts always sobered him, stopped the dreams and reminded Kevin of his reality. His reality was exy, he loved the game, it was the last tie to his mother, he grew up on it. Exy was the only reality where Kevin could live. His reality was the number on his face, essentially a brand marking Kevin as the possession he was.

 

It took some time but after a while, as Kevin grew, he stopped being able to imagine Nathaniel in The Nest. He stopped being able to imagine Nathaniel at all. Too many years had gone by and Kevin’s own features had changed with time’s passing. He couldn't picture Nathaniel's face altered with age because Kevin’s spirit had been crushed and with it what little creativity he had had been taken, leaving Kevin only able to remember Nathaniel as he once was, round cheeks and youthful, flame coloured hair when he stood in the light and his bright icy blue eyes.

 

Perhaps that is why Kevin did not recognize him in that shitty little locker room in Millport, and everyday after.

 

Neil was not like Nathaniel, which made sense because many years had passed between that day and that night.

 

Neil was short and gaunt, thin with the tell tale sign of abuse and stress and many sleepless nights. He was boring and plain and  _ dull _ and Kevin realizes now that it was intentionally done. Neil's clothes were too large and too worn and many years too old.

 

But he could play, and he was devoted to the game, and Kevin knew that with time he could be great.

 

That was enough to look past his biting tongue and insults, trust issues, and any issues he had in general really.

 

The little fucker was fast and Kevin felt something akin to joy playing with him. Even if he screamed himself hoarse at night practice.And although Neil was problematic, he defended Kevin on live TV from  _ Riko _ of all people. It was only the second time he'd seen someone stand up to Riko and say no, the first being Andrew and this was no less of a fuck you than that time.

 

It may have not brought friendship, but at least a sense of familiarity between himself and Neil.

 

Little did Kevin know just how familiar they were.

 

Kevin of course knew that he was going to be spending the Winter banquet in a semi drunken haze because that was the only way he was going to be able to get through the night, he hadn't known this night was going to be his own personal hell.

 

Kevin really wished he had drunk more.

 

In short, it started out horribly as everything involving the Foxes usually did.

 

They ended up at the same table, the Foxes and the Ravens, enemies sitting side by side and being forced to act civil. Kevin didn't think any of his team mates (past and present) understood the meaning of the word, and if they did, they obviously didn't give a fuck.

 

From there, it went down hill surprisingly fast, and it was due to Neil, or more specifically his mouth, as per usual. Then Jean had to go along and add in his 2 cents, and the world came tumbling down revealing the flames of his afterlife.

 

It was weird to hear the dreaded words  _ the butcher’s son _ as they barely passed from Jean’s lips before Neil reacted, shoving Kevin back too late when he'd already seen the look on Nathaniel’s face confirming it wasn't a lie, and then Kevin was stumbling away from the truth.

 

He wanted to beg that Nathaniel tell him it wasn't true, in hindsight he probably did, but when everything you believe comes crashing down around you it's not hard to be swept away by the aftermath.

 

Not for the first time in his short life, Kevin was in shock.

 

Shock because  _ the butcher's son was in front of him,  _ and Kevin was having a very hard time breathing.

 

_ I was right _ , Kevin mused  _ Jean does hate him, just a little bit. _ Kevin almost pitied Jean, but he forced away the thoughts and made room for a much more demanding one.

 

_ I'm going to have a panic attack  _ he marvelled as the last of his calmness from the shock started to ebb away.

 

_ That's not good. _

 

But then Abby was there and leading him away, away from everyone and everything so that Kevin could cry hidden from spying eyes and snitching mouths, so that Kevin could break down and then put up his flimsy walls to hold together all his shattered little pieces.

 

He did return a while later, a bottle of vodka or two in his system and a promise from Neil to talk tomorrow that he got sometime between his panic attack and revelation.

 

There was thankfully enough Exy and vodka in his system to survive the next 3 hours or so, not that that mattered when the Ravens began their attempt to tear them all down all over again, beckoning Kevin back to the team, promising the master wouldn't hurt him... _ much. _

 

It was hard to not give in, to stay standing with his team while his past berated him, reminded him of his  _ place _ .

 

Everything Kevin knew, everything he'd  _ lived _ had been inculcated so deep into him that Kevin had become unrecognizable from his younger self, a spineless coward, weak, everything Andrew scorned him as.

 

He'd become a pet, and a very good one at that. At least he had tried to be.

 

But as Kevin stood there, he realized he didn't want to be a pet. It was perhaps too late in everyone else's eyes, but he hadn't grown up with any other options, being a pet had been his best one! And at least he'd realized it, realized that he wanted to be like his teammates flanking him and defending themselves and each other, standing united against any thing that would bring them harm.

 

It was like waking up from a dream, breaking free from the haze clouding his mind, ripping off the cloth from around his eyes keeping him blind, and staring up from the bottom of a grave he'd been digging for a very long time.

 

The sky was very far away, and even as a Raven Kevin had never been able to fly. 

 

It looked impossible.

 

And then Neil decked Riko.

 

It was a blur everywhere but Kevin's mind. Or maybe it was the other way around?

 

_ The king had bled, the world was screaming, and it almost sounded joyful. _

 

Kevin doesn't remember being loaded onto the bus although he was surely in agony. It was taking his mind a while to catch up to his body, and it was there, the next day as they stood on the fox paw, Neil refusing to run, refusing to become a Raven, refusing to be something he was not in a place that was not here, refusing to be anything but a Fox, that it finally dawned on Kevin. Neil existed and that meant  _ the butcher had failed _ . 

 

The butcher had failed, and by extension so did the Moriyamas. For what was a head without working limbs?

 

Neil Josten may no longer have been Nathaniel Wesninski, but he had lost none of his fire trying to survive in a world that did not want him. He was living breathing proof that the Moriyamas were  _ not infallible. _

 

And under all his despair, deep inside Kevin’s chest he decided to stop being a pawn, and finally,  _ finally _ , Kevin felt a flicker of  _ hope _ .

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! you can find me on tumblr @i-care-bout-things-too and send asks, prompts, or start a conversation! kudos and comments are appreciated a lot!


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